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These are some very odd comparisons...we've got poor performance numbers on both vehicles, along with pretty terrible fuel economy. There are plenty of big box family sedans now that will get acceleration numbers significantly better, and not to mention return significantly higher than any of the vehicles listed. I mean the performance numbers aren't quite Smart Fourtwo bad, but they're not that good either.
A 10-sec 0-60 mph time and a 1/4 mile in the 16s and 17s is ample for any ordinary driving... accelerating up freeway onramps, passing another car, hill-climbing, etc. If you think the figures I posted are "poor," remember there were quite a few other cars back then which ran 18-25 second 0-60 mph and topped out at 80 or 90 mph (Fiat, Toyota, VWs, diesel Mercedes, etc).
The reason most modern cars accelerate well (besides 40 years of technology) is a high rpm redline, a low axle ratio and a low 1st gear axle ratio. Many modern cars have a 3- and even 4-series 1st gear ratio, whereas Cadillac had 2:48:1 and Mopar used 2.45:1.
But the point of the thread, as seen in post #1, is the main subject.
Agreed, "these are some very odd comparisons" ....
What seems to escape Fleet is that M-B (and a host of other car manufacturers) did build 30 mpg (and even higher!) cars in that 1970's era, as well, back in the 1960's and certainly into the 1980's, too.
But the stumbling block for him is that the cars that delivered that level of fuel economy didn't do it with the size, performance, styling, luxury features, ride/handling or other wants that he sets as a baseline.
For example ... he cites a 1964 300SE M-B, which was a rather rare top end of the line car ... but that chassis was available with smaller displacement engines that would deliver 30 mpg at the loss of top speed, acceleration, etc.
In it's most economical (and durable) form, it could get into mid 30's with the diesel engines ... but you measured the 1/4 mile time with a sundial.
As I was told by my mentors years ago in this biz ... "speed costs money". How fast do you want to go?
I am well aware that there were 30+ mpg cars available back then (I have been collecting car magazines since 1976) but, as you said, at what cost in performance?
As I said before, this would probably be a good time for you to say, "Gee, Fleet, you are right... the fuel economy of that '70 Cadillac and '73 Mercedes isn't that much different."
I am well aware that there were 30+ mpg cars available back then (I have been collecting car magazines since 1976) but, as you said, at what cost in performance?
As I said before, this would probably be a good time for you to say, "Gee, Fleet, you are right... the fuel economy of that '70 Cadillac and '73 Mercedes isn't that much different."
And, Fleet, as I said before ... your sources are coming up with fuel economy figures that don't match the real world experience gained over millions of actual user miles and years of car ownership that I and my customers experienced.
Nor is the methodology of their testing revealed in many cases, or the applicability of the methodology as being relevant to the intended useage of a given vehicle. You can't put a remarkably different set of cars through an identical set of tests for performance and necessarily relate that in a meaningful manner to how the car will be used in actual real world practice. It's a fallacy to make such conclusions as they are fraught with errors ... even the Fed has revamped their EPA test cycle and still can widely miss the mark on a lot of vehicles.
FWIW, your take on the bias issue of many automotive magazines of the era you cite is naive at best, and very comical on the face of it.
I spent enough years (in the late 1960's-early 1970's) in the inner circle of a major automotive importer to have encountered the journalistic biases that repeatedly presented to the detriment of several marques. Not gonna' rehash that here and now, but suffice to say that I participated in several "road test shoot-outs" where our product cleaned the clock of the competitors on several fronts but was panned in the published review and opinions.
This bias was so extreme on the part of the editors and publishers that they closed their eyes to our box-stock product submitted for tests when the competitors submitted specially prepp'ed vehicles that were not what the average consumer would ever purchase off the showroom stock floor and the testers knew it and the blatant differences between the two. The real proof of the pudding to me was to have a product come in as middle rated after other vehicles couldn't even complete the test due to failures ... and the magazine's testers candidly admitted when we picked up our vehicle that ours was the one they'd buy for themselves as the best of the bunch
... and several did. But that wasn't what they published for the over the counter reader as the publisher decided to be responsive to the advertising dollar stream they received from their bigger advertisers.
I can cite a fair number of cars of that era that consistently delivered far better fuel economy than was ever achieved in EPA or magazine test cycles. For example, a 320i BMW was an easy 30 mpg car on the road for most owners, yet rarely "tested" anywhere close to that. An M-B 280SE rarely "tested" in the 20's on the road, yet I had numerous customers getting 22-23 mpg with these cars ... and I was but one of a number of shops in my area that could dial in the ignition and FI to achieve that result with minimal emissions while retaining expected performance/starting/idling. I had to get "savvy" about how to tune my customer's cars as well as my competitors or I would have been losing business; everybody had their "secrets" as to their preferred settings, but the real world mpg results were similar and achievable by all of us in the area. And we were just making routine adjustments on box stock factory cars, not putting in special parts or any mods.
Right, Sunspirit, all those tests were "biased." And they only got cars which gave less mpg than what private owners got.
More like it seems you don't want to admit that a '70 Cadillac got almost the same fuel mileage as a '73 Mercedes (which weighed 1,000 lbs less and had a small V-8 engine).
Right, Sunspirit, all those tests were "biased." And they only got cars which gave less mpg than what private owners got.
More like it seems you don't want to admit that a '70 Cadillac got almost the same fuel mileage as a '73 Mercedes (which weighed 1,000 lbs less and had a small V-8 engine).
Not gonna' admit to something that I know for fact isn't true, no matter how much you would wish it to be so, Fleet. I spent way too many years of my life specializing in this series of cars to know what they could deliver in the hands of real world driving conditions with a wide variety of owners.
You can stick with your magazine "facts", and I'll stick with what I know I experienced first hand over a 30+ year career of shop ownership and hundreds of satisfied customers.
If you really wanted to get educated ... and it's apparent you don't want to do that ... you'd google some of the mags that you apparently take as gospel truth and find out how badly they misrepresented their "findings" and how biased they were to the benefit of their prime advertisers. It's been discussed at great length even within their own pages in their letters to the editors ... as well as in other forums ... and it's no great secret what their agenda's were and how they pursued them. Journalistic "truth" and reality weren't in the same room for a lot of their articles. Generally speaking, the few dissenting letters to the editors were caustically dismissed ... but the voices of dissent to the "findings" of the magazines were certainly out there in the time frame you discuss here. It was a scandal not very dissimilar to the "payola" of the broadcasting industry ... and several automotive writers of that era have since admitted same in their writings of later years. They were bought and paid for by their advertisers; it's no great trick to skew your "tests" to play to the strengths of a given vehicle to the detriment of another's strengths.
And I'd still maintain that your premise of one car being essentially the same tool as another is fundamentally flawed. It that were so, then there wouldn't be such a wide variety of motor vehicles that sell ... the market would shut down the ones that didn't satisfy the customers. Historically, and even today ... it's been the final judge of whether a car does or does not meet and/or exceed the expectations of the buyers. Even you acknowldge that the products of one manufacturer don't satisfy your wants/needs that you prioritize compared to another; you're not buying a different loaf of the same bread.
Not gonna' admit to something that I know for fact isn't true, no matter how much you would wish it to be so, Fleet. I spent way too many years of my life specializing in this series of cars to know what they could deliver in the hands of real world driving conditions with a wide variety of owners.
You can stick with your magazine "facts", and I'll stick with what I know I experienced first hand over a 30+ year career of shop ownership and hundreds of satisfied customers.
If you really wanted to get educated ... and it's apparent you don't want to do that ... you'd google some of the mags that you apparently take as gospel truth and find out how badly they misrepresented their "findings" and how biased they were to the benefit of their prime advertisers. It's been discussed at great length even within their own pages in their letters to the editors ... as well as in other forums ... and it's no great secret what their agenda's were and how they pursued them. Journalistic "truth" and reality weren't in the same room for a lot of their articles. Generally speaking, the few dissenting letters to the editors were caustically dismissed ... but the voices of dissent to the "findings" of the magazines were certainly out there in the time frame you discuss here. It was a scandal not very dissimilar to the "payola" of the broadcasting industry ... and several automotive writers of that era have since admitted same in their writings of later years. They were bought and paid for by their advertisers; it's no great trick to skew your "tests" to play to the strengths of a given vehicle to the detriment of another's strengths.
And I'd still maintain that your premise of one car being essentially the same tool as another is fundamentally flawed. It that were so, then there wouldn't be such a wide variety of motor vehicles that sell ... the market would shut down the ones that didn't satisfy the customers. Historically, and even today ... it's been the final judge of whether a car does or does not meet and/or exceed the expectations of the buyers. Even you acknowldge that the products of one manufacturer don't satisfy your wants/needs that you prioritize compared to another; you're not buying a different loaf of the same bread.
Lol! You sure hate to admit it! Will you at least admit that in the example I provided, the test '70 Cadillac and the test '73 Mercedes got similar mileage?
You are not the only one who has "real world driving conditions." Owners of Cadillacs of that era have said their cars can get anywhere from 13-15 mpg with steady highway driving. This is because car magazines usually didn't have test cars long enough to get many fuel mileage readings. It's not just with Mercedes!
Again, a very pointless comparison. The Olds in no way could compare to the overall motoring experience that the 116 chassis M-B's delivered with a 4.5 liter V-8 powering them. Add in the all-wheel disc brakes, the suspension, the handling, the well executed and appointed interiors, sunroofs, and the appearance of a decent 3-speed automatic in the 450SE (for various reasons beyond their control, M-B's prior automatics were crude compared to the USA equipment) ... and the Olds simply isn't in the class of the 'benz. The only valid comparison you could draw between these cars in the marketplace is that they both served the function of transportation and consumed gasoline.
You may be right... maybe it is a pointless comparison, but not for the reason you think. The text of that comparison test is very interesting. And before I post it, remember that Car & Driver praised many, many imported cars.
Directly from the text:
"In the American philosophy of luxury car construction, a smooth ride is a basic truth. So the Olds Cutlass is very highly refined in that respect. All suspension and drive train components are mounted to a ladder frame which is in turn isolated from the body by a multitude of fat rubber mounts. They let you pass over most bumps without a quiver- but the system is not perfect. Rough pavement will excite squeaking plastic sounds in the interior, because the body is not as stiff as it should be. And you can't waltz over wavy stretches of pavement in the Cutlass with grace. In that respect, the Mercedes is no better than the Olds, even with its fully independent suspension. Both are very stiff in roll, which dramatically diminishes the independence between the left and right sides at both ends of the car. Wavy pavement will jostle your head from side to side in both cars. But, in spite of the Mercedes' sophistication, we consider the Olds suspension far superior in terms of ride quality."
"The Mercedes transmits not only roughness to the interior, but substantial amounts of noise as well. The suspension is actually stiff enough to cause creaks in the body and the ever-present road noise combine to dispel the feeling of luxury in the Mercedes 450SE."
"The Mercedes feels more agile and responsive to the driver than almost any sedan larger than a compact. But it in no way imparts the air of luxury."
"In terms of passenger comfort, the Olds feels decidedly more expensive than the Mercedes."
"The two marques have changed dramatically in just one year. In performance- cornering, braking, acceleration and economy, the 1972 Olds easily topped the Mercedes. For '73, the balance is slightly in favor of the M-B although it still can't match the '72 Olds."
(Italics mine.)
The Olds actually did slightly better on the 200 ft. diameter skidpad than the Mercedes (Olds at 0.70 g and the M-B at 0.68 g). 70-0 mph braking was also similar (Olds: 210 feet; M-B: 208 feet).
Lol! You sure hate to admit it! Will you at least admit that in the example I provided, the test '70 Cadillac and the test '73 Mercedes got similar mileage?
You are not the only one who has "real world driving conditions." Owners of Cadillacs of that era have said their cars can get anywhere from 13-15 mpg with steady highway driving. This is because car magazines usually didn't have test cars long enough to get many fuel mileage readings. It's not just with Mercedes!
Look, Fleet ... I'll say it again: I'm not going to acknowledge numbers from others that aren't in conformity with what I know from many years of personal experience to not be correct.
I don't have a clue as to what the 1970 Cadillac delivered for mpg because I didn't own them, work on them, or drive one ... except for my buddy's Eldo which I recall got around 9 mpg and which you dismissed as not being relevant to the thread.
Maybe those caddy's did get 13-15 mpg ... I've never said that they didn't or couldn't anywhere in this thread. The reason why? because I have no basis whatsoever to post any mpg for these cars.
You may be right... maybe it is a pointless comparison, but not for the reason you think. The text of that comparison test is very interesting. And before I post it, remember that Car & Driver praised many, many imported cars.
Directly from the text:
"In the American philosophy of luxury car construction, a smooth ride is a basic truth. So the Olds Cutlass is very highly refined in that respect. All suspension and drive train components are mounted to a ladder frame which is in turn isolated from the body by a multitude of fat rubber mounts. They let you pass over most bumps without a quiver- but the system is not perfect. Rough pavement will excite squeaking plastic sounds in the interior, because the body is not as stiff as it should be. And you can't waltz over wavy stretches of pavement in the Cutlass with grace. In that respect, the Mercedes is no better than the Olds, even with its fully independent suspension. Both are very stiff in roll, which dramatically diminishes the independence between the left and right sides at both ends of the car. Wavy pavement will jostle your head from side to side in both cars. But, in spite of the Mercedes' sophistication, we consider the Olds suspension far superior in terms of ride quality."
"The Mercedes transmits not only roughness to the interior, but substantial amounts of noise as well. The suspension is actually stiff enough to cause creaks in the body and the ever-present road noise combine to dispel the feeling of luxury in the Mercedes 450SE."
"The Mercedes feels more agile and responsive to the driver than almost any sedan larger than a compact. But it in no way imparts the air of luxury."
"In terms of passenger comfort, the Olds feels decidedly more expensive than the Mercedes."
"The two marques have changed dramatically in just one year. In performance- cornering, braking, acceleration and economy, the 1972 Olds easily topped the Mercedes. For '73, the balance is slightly in favor of the M-B although it still can't match the '72 Olds."
(Italics mine.)
The Olds actually did slightly better on the 200 ft. diameter skidpad than the Mercedes (Olds at 0.70 g and the M-B at 0.68 g). 70-0 mph braking was also similar (Olds: 210 feet; M-B: 208 feet).
I know, I know... it's all "biased!"
Fleet, roll your eyes all you want to ... but the aspects of the road test that you italicized are all opinions. They are worth only what you ascribe in your trust to the reviewers ...
and are subject to a lot of hidden issues which were prevalent at the time of the driving tests.
It's no secret that various manufacturers specially prepared the cars presented to the motoring press for review. There were all kinds of mods to be made to a production car, which included everything from cherry picking the components, altering components, specially going over a car to tighten things up/adjust to optimal or better than stock functioning, using other than stock tires, higher performing brake pads/linings, better shock absorbers ... the list goes on and on of the special factory prep that was done to present a car that was better in many aspects than what a stock car off the lot would ever be without a lot of time and effort, if not dollars ... spent to prepare it. Intake manifolds were ported/polished, fuel systems were optomized, ex system components were altered, tires were selected if not outright changed from the stock components, etc etc etc.
I've personally seen this taken by the motoring press more than once to very biased extremes; ie, I've seen a major component fail on a vehicle or issues "develop" which weren't in such a good light and the press guys called up the manufacturer and told them ... hey, this car isn't working "right" ... and the manufacturer responded by getting the vehicle into their shops and fixing whatever was not up to the required level that night. Subsequently, nothing was mentioned by the motoring press in their test results. I've seen this with everything from engine failures to transmission failures to suspension failures ... and more than once.
I've seen this taken to a point where a road test magazine was invited to pick up a vehicle "randomly selected from dealer stock" at a dealership, and every one of the model to be tested was from a specially prepared group of vehicles delivered to that dealer for the event. The whole thing was staged to give the appearance of random box-stock this is what the average consumer will get if they go to the dealership purchase. With mega-millions at stake in sales, this was but a trivial overhead/marketing expense to the manufacturer ... especially the big boys like GM who controlled what? 40% of the domestic automotive sales market? no little upstart foreign manufacturer was going to challenge them in the advertising/marketing schemes ... few had the budget or the numbers of cars sold to amortize any such expense.
I'll take this out of the realm of the GM-M-B cars of this thread ... and another personal anecdote of the shennanigans that prevailed in those days. Remember the intro of the 240Z? (well, maybe you don't, it's before your time I guess). The car did spectacularly in the magazine road tests, and the dealers each got one which had been similarly prepared as their demo car. They were instructed that this car was their demo and it was not to be sold. The cars were prepped to a level that the production line cars were not, including internal engine mods, optomization of every component, and hand assembly to maximize the potential of every component selected for the final assembly. Right down to picking select fit body parts, etc. All of the cars had a similar potential if enough time and money and parts selection was available to the owner, but the production car on the lot wasn't the same car as the demo car. As it happens, an acquaintance of mine ... a well known tuner/racer/cylinder head modifier/cam grinder/race engine builder in SoCal
was the lucky buyer of one of those demo cars; talked his buddy who was the dealership owner into selling him the demo car at the end of the model year. After driving the car awhile and successfully racing it, my buddy finally tore into the engine to find out what had been done to it to make it such a strong performer compared to the stock cars he'd been asked to build engines for. He found out that the pistons & rings, rods, cylinder head, camshaft, manifolds, valve gear, cylinder finishing, oil passages, and a number of other mods had been done to the engine. He mentioned to me that the cylinder head flowed about 15% more air than the stock production heads that came into his shop for "race prep" and that he got to document the port shape/dimensions/altered valve guides that delivered that improved airflow without having to develop his own porting routine for that head.
Suffice to say that these disclosures were his stock in trade and he wasn't candid about the altered car he'd bought until some years later when it was no longer in production.
FWIW, and I know this isn't a bike thread ... but I witnessed the same thing happen with a certain american built V-twin motorcycle. I had a long chat with a former dealership owner who ... many years after the fact ... told me about how he had received a "special" shipment of motorcycles which had all been essentially race prepped by the factory for a "random inventory in the crate" road test by a major motorcycling magazine. The CA based road testers showed up at his dealership and were invited to select at "random" a new bike in the crate which would be set up and prepped for them under their careful eye. What they didn't know was that every one of that model bike in the inventory that they could select from came from the manufacturer's prep department and had been altered significantly from the standard production bike. The only person in the dealership who knew about the set-up was the owner, who had been advised to keep that truckload's delivery of that model in one location. After the road test bike was selected, the crates of the rest of them were shipped back to another dealership for a similar staged "random" new bike in the crate magazine evaluation. The whole scam made sense to me those many years later because I was working for the NAmerican importer of a competing brit bike which got clobbered or nearly so by the magazine's evaluation ... only our bike was truly a random production machine with all the warts and flaws that they had out of the box. The dealer prep was very important to the final result of the product in the consumer's hands ... you could have a very unreliable oil leaking POS, or you could have a really nice bike, maybe.
Subsequently, I was involved with the introduction into the USA of a major Euorpean manufacturer's large displacement motorcycle, their first foray into a big twin. I watched as the factory's chief engineer came to the distributorship to personally oversee the "assembly" of the bike that was to be shown in the LA bike shows as well as sent to the motorcycle press for testing/evaluation. I don't know all the tricks that were done to that bike for the demo ... but I did watch as an internationally known bike tuner/racer (world land speed record holder at Bonneville in several displacement classes) removed the heads and worked his "magic" on them before the "stock" bike was re-assembled under the supervision of the chief engineer. I do know that the bike was a pre-production hand built prototype and not of the actual production line, so there's likely a bit of other work that was done before the bike was crated and sent over to the USA. I got to demo drive the bike for a few thousand miles after it hit the cycle mags and shows, and it was definitely a machine apart from the production bikes we uncrated and shipped to the dealer network.
You've obviously never been around auto racing ... here's another well-known example of cherry picking components for testing: I have another friend who specialized in building Formula Vee cars for years, a top competitor. He used to buy stock standard carburetors by the pallet load, literally hundreds of carbs at a time. He'd flow test them to find the few that flow tested anywhere from 12-15% more than average stock. Those were the carbs that went onto his "stock" cars. In later years, he got into another class that used Renault engines, supposedly "stock" so that all competitors had the same power available. He wanted me to rebuild the engines for hime because I was known to have Renault experience. He made a big deal about it with me that the engines after rebuilding could not develop more HP than "stock", but it was difficult to be as sloppy as the manufacturer and I couldn't build motors that weren't significantly more powerful than stock. So he wound up buying new engines instead for the cars he sold or maintained for others ... but for his own cars, he had me build the engines, even if I wasn't supposed to be especially careful in the fitting up of the assembly. Needless to say, his cars were a consistent winner in the hands of the better drivers ... even with only a modest, perhaps 3-5% (within the allowable tolerance of the class regs) increase in delivered HP. And my engine builds held up while others lost a lot of power during their racing life.
Anyway, Fleet ... my point remains and nothing you can bring up will dispute this: I know from personal experience in the motor vehicle industry that road tests are highly vulnerable to tampering with the product, bias from the testers, and the magazine publishers tampering with the test protocols as well as being highly responsive to their principal advertisers. Follow the money ...
Last edited by sunsprit; 01-02-2012 at 07:29 PM..
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And they only got cars which gave less mpg than what private owners got. 
